FRANCE recalled its ambassador to Damascus as Syrian President Bashar Assad came under increasing pressure from home and abroad, with army defectors killing at least eight soldiers in a daring attack on the military.

FRANCE and Germany, Europe’s two central powers, clashed yesterday over whether the European Central Bank should intervene more forcefully to halt the eurozone’s accelerating debt crisis after modest bond purchases failed to stop the rout.

France proudly presented next year’s budget today as the first to cut spending since the Second World War, as it tries to convince nervous investors that it will get its debts under control.

MOODY’S has cut the credit ratings of two French banks because of their exposure to Greece’s debt, highlighting growing risks to Europe’s financial sector from a deepening eurozone sovereign debt crisis.

SOME of France’s richest people, including the billionaire heiress of L’Oreal and the head of oil major Total, urged the government to tax them more to help solve the country’s financial problems.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy is interrupting his holiday to hold an emergency government meeting about the uncertainty on world financial markets.

The European Union expanded its sanctions against Syria, imposing asset freezes and travel bans against five more military and government officials.

A French university has been accused of awarding diplomas to Chinese students in exchange for bribes.

French voters woke up to very different airwaves today as the race for next month’s presidential elections formally took off and each of the 12 candidates was granted equal broadcast time.

French President Jacques Chirac spent his third full day in the hospital today, as aides delivered him paperwork and said he was fully capable of carrying out his duties.